


Shift

by tarquin



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarquin/pseuds/tarquin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He doesn’t know what he feels first, the paws where his hands should be, the wind sweeping over small triangular ears atop his head, the fur that coats his body or the succinct and telling tail that grows just above his ass. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>No, nothing is very right and everything is very feline.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Shift

**Author's Note:**

> Written after a prompt given by the wonderful buttskun on tumblr. <3

Gavin’s game has always been simple, toying with Michael. There’s no better duo than them, the playful and exuberant one and his straight man, the one who likes to cause trouble just so the other can berate them for it. For months now it’s a formula they’ve adopted, something they both play by and enjoy. 

But as of late things have been different, and it’s Michael who notices.

Because Michael’s always loved playing that game with Gavin. He loves getting riled up, he likes the way Gavin knows how to push his buttons and set him off in a way that is purely done just to make him laugh. Gavin’s his closest friend and nine times out of ten Michael wants Gavin to be around him, even if it means his blood pressure is going to double and he may or may not have to call him words that would make a sailor blush.

But lately there’s been a shift between them, the air feels like it’s grown thinner and to Michael, it feels like the veils they may or may not have been hiding behind have moved apart. After the cute girl at work called Lindsay asks him out Michael begins to notice the way Gavin looks at him more. The way his gaze lingers, and how silences last too long between words. When Gavin pushes his buttons he always takes one of two roads, slapstick humor that annoys Michael above all things and makes him legitimately angry, or halfhearted little jabs that aren’t worth responding to.

Gavin is off, for some reason. And Michael tries to pretend he doesn’t know why. He tries not to see Gavin looking at him while he sits next to Lindsay at bars or restaurants, but it’s quickly becoming impossible.

And Michael can’t say that he’s angry about the feelings he knows Gavin has. Honestly he’s been suspicious of them for a while. The problem lies in the fact that when Gavin does the things he does, make Michael as angry as he does, make Michael laugh as hard as he does, share those damn smiles and hold his glance for just a little too long- it’s impossible to say that he isn’t aware that the feelings are, on some level, reciprocated.

But of course, as it often is with love, the feelings are complicated.

Because Gavin is his work buddy, his friend. And Michael has a girlfriend, who he likes a lot. And it never feels fair that while the three of them are out together that Michael spends all his time at Gavin’s hip, or that Gavin makes it his prerogative to garner all of Michael’s attention. Michael doesn’t like that he’s falling in love with this idiot, and he does his best to fight it off.

The final battle happens on a Wednesday night.

Most of the office is gone for the night, the sun is setting outside and Michael rests his chin on his palm, clicking files into order to try and make another Rage Quit as funny as the rest of them have been. This one’s nothing special, and more than anything Michael just wants it to be done with so he can get out of the office and meet up with Lindsay to see a movie. He’s behind schedule, and his foot taps impatiently as he waits for the computer to catch up with his movements. 

“Hey, Mikey-Wikey,” Comes a voice that shatters Michael’s concentration like a cold bucket of water. Gavin plops down in his usual seat next to the boy, swinging his knees over to watch a file render on screen.

“Hi, Gavin.” Michael replies, succinct. Gavin’s pulled himself right up to Michael’s side and he smells like cologne, and Michael is so busy trying not to notice how close he is that he accidentally deletes a sound file. He curses.

“Fuc- Do you need something?”

“Nah, just waitin’ on a ride home, thought I’d see what you were up to.” He swings his legs back and forth, knocking Michael’s. He’s smiling.

“It’s late on a Wednesday, what do you think I’m up to?”

“I dunno, stuff?”

“Stuff would be correct.”

Michael makes a point of not mentioning how close Gavin is, not noticing how he leans in with every breath, or that he’s got a mischievous gleam in his eye. The boy obviously wants attention and usually Michael would give it to him. But at the same time Michael doesn’t want Gavin around him, not when he’s about to go on a date with his Girlfriend. Not when he doesn’t want to think about him.

Gavin’s about to say something else when it happens. The taller boy is reaching across Michael’s desk for the can of coke on the opposite side of his keyboard, and in the process manages to knock it over. It’s mostly full and sticky brown liquid spills out and coats the desk almost immediately. Gavin reels back, Michael yells something, it all falls like dominoes.

Michael tries to backpedal away from his desk but Gavin has him trapped, and soda pours from his keyboard to his lap. When he tries to stand up the desk jumps with him, tangled chords in the back of the computer popping and twisting. The screen goes black, and underneath the desk the modem stops humming- unplugged.

Michael’s blood turns to fire.

“What the _fuck-!_ ” he manages, and when he sees Gavin the boy is good and proper terrified, as he should be. Because hours worth of footage is gone. Because he’s going to need a new keyboard and mouse. Because now he’s going to have to go home and change and all of this because Gavin wanted to flirt a little.

“What is your problem, asshole?” He yells as Gavin starts to back up.

“I’m sorry Michael, I didn’t mean-“

“Bullshit you didn’t mean to! You mean to do all of it, every fucking thing you do to me!”

“I’ll edit it, I’ll stay late.” He puts up his hands. His eyes are wide. “You just-“

“Don’t fucking talk to me. Don’t even look at me right now, just go.”

“Michael,” 

“Go! Get the fuck out of this room, and stay out. And I mean forever. No more flirting, no more playing around. I’ve been putting up with your bullshit for months now, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of you.”

Soda drips to the floor and Gavin is staring ahead like he’s been struck. His hands, once up to try and reason with Michael fall to his sides and his eyes survey the boy in front of him.

“Was that what it was?” He asks, his voice wavering. “Bullshit? Just bullshit?”

“If you haven’t noticed,” Michael growls as he grabs his sweatshirt and heads to the door, “I have a girlfriend, Gavin. That should tell you exactly what this all has been. A goddamn waste of time.”

He shuts the door behind him with a slam so satisfactory he feels it in his bones. The walls rattle and a poster goes askew in his war path, and Michael’s almost fifteen feet out of the building when the regret hits him.

_He just told Gavin he’s sick of him. That everything they’ve been doing has been meaningless. That Gavin is a waste of time._

With a groan loud enough to be heard across town, Michael turns about-face and heads back for the office. His head feels heavy and he’s already practicing his apology, and he doesn’t even notice the ground is uneven until he’s falling.

He hits the pavement with a heavy thud, the side of his head landing roughly on the cement. His vision swims and a curse works its way out of his mouth, and before he can try and get his bearings the world swims in black. 

x x x

Michael wakes up to the sound of the iron gates surrounding the parking lot scraping against the pavement. 

He blinks open his eyes to try and see who has left the building now, and moreover who has so thoughtfully walked past the guy passed out in the middle of the lot. He’s already preparing the thank you speech he’ll dish out to Monty or Kerry or whoever when he realizes Gavin’s the one dragging open the gate.

 _Thanks a lot, asshole_ , Michael seethes internally. He opens his mouth to dish out a similar remark out loud, and that’s when he notices that something is very, very wrong.

He doesn’t know what he feels first, the paws where his hands should be, the wind sweeping over small triangular ears atop his head, the fur that coats his body or the succinct and telling tail that grows just above his ass. 

No, nothing is very right and everything is very feline.

Shaking, heart pounding, Michael gets to his feet, frowning at the balance he places on four paws and at the fact that his head is hardly one foot off the ground. His mind races, trying to accept what’s happened to him or how or why, but there’s no answer that could live up to his questions. For a good thirty seconds he stands frozen in the middle of the pavement, and were he more aware of his feline body he’d realize how puffed up and frightened he looks. 

That’s when Gavin sees him.

The human, heading back towards the building after opening the gate, lazily swings his head left and Michael goes stiff. Green eyes sweep over his frame and Michael backs up instinctively, but Gavin puts up a hand and Michael doesn’t have time to feel patronized before Gavin’s talking. His voice is heavy with melancholy; Michael’s ears twitch with distain all their own.

“Hey there, how’d you get out here?” He asks, all gentle and timid. If cats could frown, Michael would be.

“If I told you, you would not believe me.” The cat replies, but all that comes out of his mouth is a pitiful meow. Not even a boisterous one, as angry and confused as he is. Just a wavering mew that makes Gavin smile. Michael narrows his eyes.

“Yeah?” Gavin says, taking a step forward. Michael freezes in place. Does he run? Does he stay? He can easily say this isn’t a situation he’s faced before and no option is really sticking out as a winner to him. Gavin takes another step.

“Well you’re a scrawny little thing, aren’t you?” He says. Michael presses himself harder against the ground, wanting to run but not wanting to leave. Being near Gavin isn’t something he wants right now but at the same time he’s a fucking cat, where the hell else does he have to go?

“Shut the fuck up, Gavin.” He growls. It’s an even weaker meow than before. Gavin’s two steps away from him.

“Hey, hey, ‘S alright.” Gavin says, crouching down. Michael’s used to him being taller but this is a stretch, and when Gain puts a hand out, presumably for Michael to sniff like he’s some kind of animal, his gentleness is the last thing Michael wants. 

Considering his options, Michael’s almost set his mind on using his new sharp claws to push Gavin away from him (a rather rhetorical process honestly,) when a loud truck rattles down the road outside the gates and everything in Michael’s tiny frame seizes. 

Flattening himself to the ground and hissing, Michael backs away and prepares to run, but in that same instant there are hands lifting him from under his arms, strong and firm and warm, and Michael’s instinct to resist is smothered by the rattling echo the delivery truck in his ears. He presses into the closest safety he has, which regrettably is the fabric of Gavin’s shirt, and when the world settles down to its usual hum Michael’s nose is tucked deep into the crook of Gavin’s elbow and he’s shaking.

Fingers thread through the soft fur at the nape of his neck and damn it all if it doesn’t feel incredible. Michael would almost want to melt into the touch if he wasn’t, you know, a human turned cat resting in the arms of the guy who he’s just had a verbal falling out with and hates but doesn’t hate but yeah definitely hates.

“Geeze,” Gavin’s voice reverberates through a hum in his chest. “Okay, okay, it’s gone, you’re alright.”

Michael untucks his face from Gavin’s arm and blinks up, feeling all kinds of embarrassed and uncomfortable. Gavin’s staring right at him, and Michael doesn’t know what makes his spine crawl more, the soft kindness that’s blatant on the Brit’s face, or the red puffiness around his nose and the tiredness in his eyes.

 _You did that,_ Michael reminds himself. _You did that to him._

Guilt pulls at him and Michael thinks to spring out of Gavin’s arms, but not before the boy is turning back towards the Rooster Teeth building.

“A little thing like you getting spooked by a car? Something tells me you haven’t been an outdoor cat for long.”

Michael whips his head back and forth, watching the skyline get further away and watching Gavin pull him back towards the double doors of the building. He decides in that moment that out of his options, being carted away by Gavin is probably his safest bet. He goes limp in Gavin’s arms as a sign of defeat.

He regrets that decision seconds later when he hears Gavin mutter under his breath, “Have you been abandoned too?”

x x x

Barbara gives Gavin a ride back to Geoff’s house, and Michael is resigned to sitting in Gavin’s lap. At first it had been every kind of awkward imaginable, Michael can think of plenty more places in the world he’d rather be than on top of Gavin, but at the feeling of the boy’s fingers ghosting over his spine he’d slowly relaxed.

Gavin had picked himself up some, since finding Michael. He’d stopped looking miserable, even cracked a smile at the threats Gus had thrown at him when Gavin had jokingly suggested that he’d found a new office cat. Now he hums along to the radio and talks cheerfully with Barbara, and Michael eavesdrops shamelessly.

“So, are you gonna keep it?” She asks, taking her eyes off the road to glance at Michael who gives her a succinct look for calling him an “It.” She doesn’t seem to notice though. That’s something that seems to happen a lot now that he’s a cat, Michael realizes. No one reads his expressions anymore. He wonders if he’ll have to pee on stuff now to get his message across.

“I dunno, maybe.” Gavin says. He drags his fingernails down the slop of Michael’s head and Michael leans into the touch despite himself. “Since Griffon’s other cat ran away they’ve been thinking of getting something new, and they’ve always been keen on adopting.”

“So when they get back from their vacation you’re just gonna surprise them with a brand new cat?”

“Basically.”

Michael doesn’t know if he likes the sound of that but he says nothing. Not that anyone would listen, nor does he have anything to pee on yet.

When they pull up to the empty Ramsey house, Gavin is in good spirits again and Michael is still a cat. Barbara wishes him a good night and asks if Gavin wants company, but the boy declines her offer.

“Nah,” he says, voice drooping a little, “Think I’m just gonna call it a night as is.”

He is lying, Michael can tell, but Barbara doesn’t pick up on it and waves goodbye as Gavin carries Michael into the house under one arm. The cat struggles, wriggling until Gavin lets him go on the kitchen counter.

“I said you could carry me, not get your armpit stink all over me, Jesus.” Michael huffs. More than a little instinct wills him to pass his new rough tongue over his fur –ginger, he realizes in the kitchen light, and the irony does not escape him- but he’s not that far cat yet. Instead he glares at Gavin as the boy watches him, and then laughs when Michael’s done meowing.

“I take that to mean you’re hungry?” Gavin asks, and Michael tries to roll his new cat eyes at the boy. It doesn’t work and Gavin goes to the cupboard to pull out a dish, then the fridge.

“Are you really going straight for the milk, Gavin?” he meows. His cat voice does not relay his annoyance. “What’s next, a can of tuna?”

“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying,” Gavin answers. “Geeze, you’re a bossy one aren’t you?”

“I hate you Gavin.”

The boy drops the saucer on the counter and pours in a generous helping of milk. Michael stares at it, trying to convey that he’s not about to even consider touching it, but it smells nice and Michael’s stomach feels hollow and the next thing he knows his little pink cat tongue is flicking at the surface, and Gavin it ruffling the fur at the base of his spine going “Atta boy, eat up.” 

It’d be humiliating if Michael wasn’t starving. Or at least that’s how he justifies it to himself.

While Michael drinks his fill he watches Gavin turn towards the liquor cabinet, reaching for clear and brown bottles as well as an empty glass. The cat laughs, as much as a cat can anyway, and he’s considering knocking over a very expensive bottle of whiskey Gavin left on a corner of the counter when he hears the sound of a key and a door opening.

“Hello?” Comes a voice that isn’t Geoff or Griffon. “Gav, you in?”

Gavin puts down the bottle he’s holding and looks up, locking eyes with Michael for a second before walking towards the doorway.

“Dan?” He calls warily. Michael looks up.

“’Ey B, there you are. You never got back to me. You alright?”

The voice of Gavin’s close friend is all tones of concern and kindness, to the point where it makes Michael uneasy. The other human knows that something is wrong, He’s been alerted to the situation. Michael stops drinking. His stomach hardens. 

_Since when does Dan know where the Ramseys hide their spare key?_ He wonders. _And when had Gavin talked to him?_ The only time Michael’s not been around him in the past day was when he’d stormed out of the office, and if Gavin had been so ill affected by their falling out, what the hell had he told the boy?

The older Brit pulls Gavin in close for what could be a platonic friend hug, but lingers just a little too long. Gavin smiles when he’s held there and pats his friend on the back, and Michael gets to his feet –paws- when the boys separate.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay now. Better, anyway.” Gavin answers, leading Dan into the kitchen. “Me ‘n Michael had a bit of an episode earlier, but I think the worst is over.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“Oh, you know, same old same old. It’s always the same stuff with him.”

“Would you mind not divulging our personal life to your friend like this, Gavin?” Michael hisses (literally,) as the pair pass him along the way to the counter. This time his meow comes across as angry, and they pause when a swish of Michael’s tail disturbs the saucer next to him. “I know he’s your friend and all, but really?”

“Who’s this?” Dan asks, completely oblivious to Michael’s anger. He does as Gavin did before, putting out a hand to sniff and Michael doesn’t move, glaring daggers. He doesn’t like that Gavin went to Dan before him. He doesn’t like that Dan’s here now, like some kind of comfort service. His chest feels funny and he wants Dan to leave, and he wants to be human so he can properly be mad at the fairer haired British boy in the room. 

“Oh that’s erm, that’s, that’s a stray I found in the parking lot earlier. Little guy was scared of his own shadow so I took him in. Seems nice enough.”

“There’s a difference between my shadow and an eighteen wheeler ten feet away from me, you fuck.”

“But he talks _a lot_.”

A second later and Dan’s palm is all over him, his smell obliterating Michael’s own. Michael squirms away from the pressure, suppressing a hiss and all but knocking the milk off the counter in an effort to get away. He’s not even sure if he likes it when Gavin pets him (There’s a sentence Michael had never thought he’d have to think,) But Dan is definitely a no-go.

“Aw, he’s cute.” Dan says, leaving Michael to glare from across the room as Gavin pours clear liquid into a glass. “This Michael stuff though, you gonna be alright?”

Michael growls, literally growls from the bottom of his throat, but it goes unnoticed.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Nothing I haven’t gotten over before.”

Dan hesitates before he replies. “Yeah, I guess. There’s always next time.”

“True,” Gavin says. “But I think he’s made it clear that I’m not in his ballpark, or whatever the saying is. It was a pretty bad falling out.” Gavin pauses. “I think he hates me.”

Michael doesn’t even have it in him to yell at that. He only stares, incredulous, as Gavin downs his first shot. Inside he’s burning, wanting to know exactly how long he’s been something to get over, how often this happens, or why Gavin has never brought it up before, but he’s starting to realize these are the questions that are meant to go unanswered. He wants to tell Gavin that he doesn’t hate him, or at least doesn’t think he does, but instead he’s resigned to being a third party observer, frozen on paws and unable to say a word.

What’s more concerning than Gavin’s emotional distance though, is the look on Dan’s face when Gavin says it. Michael catches it when he turns his head. Fleeting, soft, something between concern and pity and a third emotion Michael doesn’t care to name. The boy is staring, and it takes a second for his lips to move. Michael knows this body language all to well, and he doesn’t care for it on Dan.

“You need company tonight, B?” He asks. Michael used to think their little nickname game for each other was stupid and funny, but he quickly quickly does not like it.

In response to his friend Gavin pulls out a second shot glass, smiling as he fills it to the brim. He pours a second one for himself and they clink their glasses together, acrid liquor sloshing on to the floor.

“Cheers,” Gavin says as they down them, and in the boy’s eyes Michael can see affection, and it makes his new skin feel tight.

x x x

The pair of them, Dan and Gavin, end up sprawled out on the living room couch, not enough space between them (In Michael’s opinion,) and a half emptied bottle of vodka on the table in front. They turn on a movie, some comedy or action flick that they’ve both seen, but most of their time is spent bullshitting with each other, taking drinks and then chasers and dissolving into giggles.

Michael, for his part, ends up back on Gavin’s lap, choosing it over Dan’s lap where he absolutely doesn’t want to be, or between them like an inconvenient fur pillow. Instead he settles for the warmth of Gavin’s body and the feel of his practiced hands petting him mindlessly. When Dan tries to reach for him playfully Michael lets out his first proper hiss, and the two laugh at it like it’s some kind of joke.

“I don’t know what it is with him, I guess he just doesn’t like you.” Gavin says.

“Him and every girl in most of the bars around here.” Dan replies. Gavin laughs at this, but in a gentle way that’s too saccharine for Michael’s taste. He sinks his claws into the denim covering the skin above Gavin’s knee and the boy swats at him. It was worth it.

“So, what are you gonna call that thing anyway?” Dan asks, looking at Michael. Gavin’s bleary eyes study the cat as well and he gets a dopey smile on his face and Michael feels sick when he uses it on the other boy.

“What about… smaller Dan?”

“Oh hell no.” Michael growls. Dan keens.

“That’s was the first thing to come to your mind?”

“What? I think it’s top!”

“Well it’s better than anything I could come up with.”

“It’s a pretty good name, I like it a lot.”

_I’ll skin both of you in your sleep._

Michael goes to do something else, knock over something or stop himself from being called Smaller Dan for the rest of his life, but it’s impossible to miss how the air in the room suddenly feels charged. And when he looks up at Gavin he sees the drunk boy staring at his friend, and he sees how Dan’s eyes are dark, dark with want.

“I like _you_ a lot.” Dan replies.

Michael’s body goes rigid. 

_Don’t._

Gavin breaks eye contact but Dan is leaning in, and the hand that Michael despises is reaching for the boy, nudging at his jaw until Gavin looks again. Their faces creep closer and Michael’s body is filled with bile, and when Dan kisses him Michael feels sick.  
“Gavin!” He barks, but his voice his just a shrill meow, “Wait, hold on, don’t,”

Gavin kisses back, of course he does, it’s not like there’s anyone else he could kiss anymore, and when they pull apart their eyes lock. For one shining second Gavin looks scared, or maybe even regretful. Michael’s got a library of things he wants to say but none of them are in English, and it doesn’t matter because Dan is whispering to the boy that he doesn’t deserve to have his heart be toyed with anymore and that he deserves better, and Gavin loses all reservation when he kisses Dan back.

At first Michael can’t move. Even when Gavin angles his body towards Dan he stays, stoic and in shock. First they’re tentative and gentle, like little apologies shared between the two of them, but it doesn’t take long for their breathing to get shallow and for their hands to start to explore.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. There’s no way one of Gavin’s arms is looped around Dan’s neck, holding him still. Their hands aren’t touching each other, exploring, their pulses aren’t starting to double as Dan noses his way down Gavin’s jaw, licking and sucking little bare patches of skin. 

But it’s real, and it’s real when Dan latches on to Gavin’s neck and Gavin moans in response, and it’s real when Gavin angles their hips together, and Michael doesn’t want to think about being in Gavin’s lap of all places as they move closer, breaths shallow, hungry and depraved.

They mold into each other’s bodies and communicate through sighs of contentment, and Michael, their voyeur, feels sick.

When reality hits the cat on the couch he reacts strongly, half of him wanting to tear the humans above him to pieces, for wanting each other and for acting on their desires. But the other half of him just wants to run, like before when he felt Gavin’s eyes on his back and he didn’t know what to say. 

Again he chooses run and this time the decision feels right. His claws skitter on the hardwood and he’s heading for somewhere, anywhere better than this, when Gavin’s voice breaks the silence.

“Dan, no, we can’t.”

Triumph in the face of failure; Michael turns around.

“We can.” But that asshole is still sucking on his neck. It makes Gavin whine like nothing else has, and the sound is decadent and Michael hates it. He turns around suddenly, greedy to watch Dan be sent off. If he’s going to be hurt tonight, at least Gavin’ second choice will be as well. Gavin is slurring, pin wheeling his arms as he tries to stand.

“Nah, we’re too drunk. It’s a bad- a bad idea. Let’s just go t’bed.”

He pushes Dan off of him and the boy slumps back, but it’s clear that his intentions are far from innocent. He lets himself be helped up from the couch and he follows Gavin down the hall to where his room is, but they don’t so much as make it to the door before Dan moves in again, pressing Gavin against the wall, nuzzling the skin between Gavin’s shoulder and neck.

Michael’s breath leaves him in a pitiful cry. “Gavin, don’t do this.”

“Hhh, mnn,” Gavin tries to form words but they get lost on his lips, fumbling into little catches of breath as Dan snakes an arm up his shirt, working the skin underneath. Gavin whines at this, rolling his hips forward until Dan takes the hint, and the older boy rocks into his body.

All the while Michael sits, stunned. Because it had been clear that there’d been feelings there, between them. And he’d never felt completely right when he’d turned Gavin away. But at the same time he’d always held off because he couldn’t be sure either way and he might have been in love, and there are a thousand excuses that tumble through his head, but none of them matter. Seeing someone else gently kiss their way into Gavin’s mouth, watching them grin as Gavin pulls back and opens the door to his room and turns to lead them inside, it’s an answer to a question Michael had been asking himself for weeks.

He could have that, those gasps and whimpers. That skin could be his to touch, to taste. Those eyes that lit up when he’d been told he was special could have glowed for him, and instead Michael had called him a childish waste of time and had stormed away.

For what it’s worth, Michael does try to stop them. Following them down the hall with determined pawsteps he tries to make his voice boisterous, tries to make his presence known.

“Gavin,” He says in a measured voice. It is nothing more than a meow. “Gavin I need to talk to you, I need you to listen to me. You’re making a mistake, you fucking moron.”

He follows them right to the door, where Gavin is peppering Dan’s jaw with kisses and grinning, eyes shiny with lust. Dan’s touching him all around, drawing out whimpers and when Michael tries to follow them into the bedroom he’s met with a foot on his chest.

“Nah, you gotta stay out here buddy.” Gavin’s voice is cloying with excitement. Dan chuckles in response and Michael’s sending off his final plea when the door shuts in his face.

“Gavin, no, Gavin!”

He wavers to his hind legs, pressing his front paws on the door and wills the sounds on the other side to stop. There are thuds as they hit the bed and rustling as clothes hit the floor, and even more sounds that his heightened senses don’t want to pick up.

Michael doesn’t stick around to hear Gavin get fucked. He doesn’t want to puke on one of Griffon’s nice rugs.

x x x

He gets out through one of the open windows in the house. Bravely he leaps to the ground, picking his way across the lawn and then down the road. He walks aimlessly, confused and angry, trying to clear his head.

This must be some kind of cosmic punishment, he thinks. Not only to be forced to watch Gavin be in love with someone else, but to be completely unable to do a thing about it. 

Or maybe it’s not even punishment, maybe it’s just torture. To see what he’d not known he wanted being taken from him and be given to someone else, someone capable of loving him without fear or reservation.

He finds a small bush on the side of the road and curls into a tight ball. The heaviness in his chest takes him to sleep.

x x x

In the morning, Michael is almost naïve enough to tell himself it didn’t happen. It would be easy to do, what with waking up human and also in his own bed. Sunlight streams down over his sheets and it’s almost believable that the vivid and terrible memories are just apparitions made up by his brain in the throes of sleep, and that the boy who loved him –who he loved?- didn’t spend last night in bed with another guy. 

But Michael wakes up to an e-mail first thing from Gus, who found his phone in the parking lot the night before. On that phone, of course, are frantic texts from Lindsay because he never returned her calls, and when she’d come over to his place he wasn’t home.

Michael assures her that he was just out at the time, probably scouring the city for his phone. She tells him not to scare her like that again and Michael promises to make it up to her. It’s all too easy to lie and it deepens the ache in his chest.

The nail in the coffin of course, is the train wreck that is Gavin Free as he gets into the office that morning. The boy is nursing a bad hangover and, for whatever reason that he chooses not to disclose, a slight limp. Ray’s the first one to suggest the most lewd and obvious answer, but Gavin bluffs if off easily enough, saying he fell when he went out for bevs. 

“Michael, did you have anything to do with this?” Jack asks, having no previous knowledge of their fight. Michael’s throat is lined with acid as he reports back in his usual tone, “No Jack, I did not.”

And the day goes on. Michael realizes soon enough that Gavin still thinks he’s mad at him for the fight from yesterday, and keeps a terse silence between them. He does announce that he’d found a ginger cat in the parking lot the night before, and he’s fairly sure the cat is now lost somewhere in his house. He gets laughed at, ridiculed, but Michael can’t make himself make a sound.

Finally, at midday, Gavin corners him out in the kitchen.

“Are you still mad at me?” He asks, more abrasive than usual. Michael’s eyes flick up and down as he tries to think of an answer that doesn’t involve the phrase “last night when I was drinking milk on your kitchen counter,”.

“Because if you are,” Gavin presses on. Michael prepares himself for the worst. “I just want to say… I’m okay with it. Now, at least. I mean, I know you know that I don’t do well with the whole rejection thing, but me and Dan talked it out and I, I wanted to apologize to you actually, for coming on so strong. I.. I hope you can forgive me.”

Michael’s suddenly very happy that he hasn’t said a word to Gavin all day, because he couldn’t form words into a sentence right now if he was getting paid. He does manage to swallow every flame that burns through him at the mention of Dan, that the idea that Gavin and Dan talked it over, and that Gavin no longer is interested in him. All of this gets internalized and pressed down, and Michael accepts that he’s going to die young from actual repressed rage of all things.

“Uh,” He says, starting strong. Gavin watches him, honestly concerned and Michael wants to beat that concern off his face. He hates him for lying. He hates him for being with Dan. He hates him for the guilt he feels. 

He hates himself most of all for letting this happen. “Y-yeah, man. It’s um, it’s no problem. I overreacted.”

Gavin smiles, warm and bright. Michael’s systems are failing.

“That’s great Michael, really. Because you really do mean a lot to me and I’d hate to lose this friendship, you know what I mean?”

“I do.” He’s dying inside, there’s never been less oxygen in his lungs.

“Awesome. So, team Nice Dynamite?” He puts a hand up for a fist bump. It feels good to make a fist, even if it’s just to bounce off of Gavin’s knuckles.

“Team Nice Dynamite.” He answers.

They part ways, Gavin heading for the office, Michael looking for some place to sit down. They’re not more than ten steps away from each other though when Gavin calls to him and Michael turns.

“Hey, do you want to go out and get bevs tonight? Me you Lindsay and Dan? Should be a good time.”

The single hardest thing Michael’s ever had to do is plaster the nonchalant smile on his face that he’s wearing. He shrugs, though it feels like his own skeleton is testing his skin. And Gavin has no clue, because things are suddenly so easy for him, and Michael has never been so jealous.

“Sorry, can’t, not tonight. I’ve got other plans.” That involve sitting in his apartment and staring incredulously at the wall.

“Ah well,” Gavin sighs, walking away. “There’s always next time.”

Michael watches him, bile in his throat.

“Yeah, you’d think that.”


End file.
